Web Spy: RescueTime

[There are over 100 million sites on the Internet. 100 million! You might think you know about all the important ones (CollegeCandy, Gmail, Google, Facebook…), but there are thousands of other sweet sites out there (like When Parents Text, College Daybreak and iConcertCal) and more showing up every day! We get it – it’s not easy or fun sifting through the crap and porn to find those gems, so we’re gonna bring the gems to you. Just sit back, kick up those feet and allow us to introduce you to the diamonds in the internet rough.]

It’s a terrible habit of nearly every college student: procrastination. I procrastinate as long as I absolutely can, sometimes even opting to vacuum the entire apartment and do the dishes instead of sitting down to do what I have to do. And then when I do finally start studying or writing a paper, I have a hard time staying focused.

Yes, as great as the internet is at keeping us amused, connected, and informed, it’s a major source of distraction that gets in the way of me doing, well, anything. At all. Ever.

I’m sick of wasting all my time, but I don’t have a lot of willpower to keep me off of Zappos.com and on the actual task at hand. That’s why I’m glad I’ve discovered RescueTime. RescueTime is a web-based tool that aims to help you make better use of your time.

Simply download and install the program (the “Lite” edition is free), and it’ll start tracking the time you spend on each application or website. Soon, you’ll be able to see how efficiently you’re spending your time.

You already know that you waste a lot of time stalking your crush on Facebook, reading your favorite blogs, and watching Funny or Die videos. However, when you’re faced with the actual numbers of how much time you’re wasting and compare that to the amount of time you’ve spent sitting at your computer, it can be a little shocking.

And that’s the reaction RescueTime is hoping for. RescueTime shows you exactly what you’re spending your time doing. Once you know how you’re spending (or wasting away) your time, you can (hopefully) learn to budget your time towards more productive endeavors. In fact, RescueTime claims to recover an average of nearly 4 lost work hours a week!

There is a catch, though: you have to actually want to be more productive. If wasting away hours on the internet doesn’t bother you, then you probably won’t find much use for RescueTime. But for the rest of you, do yourself a favor and download it — you’ll be more productive in no time at all!